The AI conversation is getting a lot more pragmatic through tangible case studies and more reasonable thinking about agentic commerce.
It would be an exaggeration to say that all of the major themes emanating from Shoptalk Spring 2026 involved AI. But just a slight one.
Shoptalk’s content planners dedicated an entire stage of panel discussions and presentations to the topic, although they did also astutely name the event’s full agenda “Retail in the Age of AI” since every session on every stage discussed AI to some degree — and that statement is not an exaggeration.
Agentic platforms will “eventually replace the traditional search and ecommerce experience,” predicted Sky Canaves, Principal Analyst for Retail & Ecommerce for EMARKETER, while presenting findings from a just-published research report fielded in partnership with Publicis Commerce. But a number of forecasters are more publicly skeptical about the direct impact they will have on sales.
There have been many changes to the agentic commerce marketplace since Shoptalk Fall was held last September, including the coincidental fact that (as Canaves noted), OpenAI’s ChatGPT “came full circle” — unveiling an in-platform “Instant Checkout” initiative during the earlier show and disclosing plans to shutter the program right before Shoptalk Spring began.
EMARKETER conservatively estimates that search agents will generate $20 billion in U.S. product sales this year and $144 billion in 2029 — when agentic commerce will account for roughly 9% of all ecommerce sales. A more aggressive forecast puts the 2029 number at $225 billion and 14% of ecommerce sales if you add in purchases made either within third-party agentic platforms or on a retailer website immediately after an agent’s recommendation.
The future, therefore, “is still highly speculative,” Canaves acknowledged, especially since most retailers either don’t yet have an agent or aren’t prominently featuring the ones they have. Yet she projects that agentic commerce will ultimately usher in a new era for commerce defined by three types of “shoppers”: humans, AI-assisted human shoppers, and AI agents.
Meanwhile, a number of Shoptalk attendees appreciatively noted that discussions around the impact of AI on the business of commerce marketing have progressed “from ethereal to real practice,” in the words of Saatchi X’s Amy Vollet (see page 21), with speakers now presenting case studies detailing effective implementation — often involving improvements to retail media activation and nearly as often featuring mutually beneficial partnerships.
And despite the overwhelming focus on AI, there was still plenty of attention paid to that first and still-most-important of EMARKETER’s three shoppers: the humans who continue to visit physical stores and still have their own ideas about brand loyalty — no matter what their agents might be telling them.
Here are five key themes from Shoptalk Spring 2026:
1. Agentic Commerce Is Not Taking Over Retail.
2. AI Is Taking Over Marketing Processes.
3. Retail Media Is Maturing (but still has some growing up to do).
4. The Physical Store May Yet Be Eternal.
5. Loyalty Building is More Important Than Ever.
Download our "Shoptalk Spring Recap Report" for a deeper dive on these themes from nine leaders across the Publicis Commerce ecosystem.
